The Reactive Thermal Conductivity of Air at High Temperatures

This paper presents the thermal conductivity of air from the dissociation and ionization reactions of the nitrogen and oxygen species in air from 1000°K to 25,000°K. the results for nitrogen are compared with results for the non-reactive (frozen) contribution to the thermal conductivity of the “nitrogen system” (N ₂ , N, N ⁺ , and the electron, e). at 6000°K, the contribution to the thermal conductivity from the dissociation of N ₂ is more than an order of magnitude greater than the frozen thermal conductivity and, at 15,000°K, the contribution to the thermal conductivity from the ionization of nitrogen atoms is about as large as the contribution from the frozen thermal conductivity.